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Nazi Germany, c.1930-39

Hitler, Nazism and Nazi beliefs

Why did Hitler develop such extreme beliefs?

Hitler was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1889. He served in the German army during the First World War and became convinced that the army had been betrayed by the November Criminals, the politicians who had signed the Armistice in November 1918.

In 1919 Hitler joined the German Workers Party and became the leader in 1921. He blamed the Jews and Socialist politicians for the problems facing Germany, claiming that German blood had been polluted. He set up a private army, the Sturm Abteilung, the SA or Stormtroopers, to attack his opponents.

In November 1923 Hitler tried to seize power in Munich, but was arrested and put in prison for five years.

While Hitler was in prison, he wrote ‘Mein Kampf’(My Struggle), which was a cross between his autobiography and a list of his political ideas:

 The German people were a master race, a 'Herrenvolk'. All other races (Slavs, Jews, black people and gypsies) were inferior 'Untermenschen'.

 Germany should be re-united and seize land to the east, 'Lebensraum'.

 To make Germany great again, a new leader was needed. Democracy was a weak system and should be replaced by dictatorship. Communism should be destroyed.

 German citizens should be prepared to subordinate themselves to the needs of the state.

 Men and women had separate roles in society, which they had to be prepared for from the earliest age.

The Nazi rise to power: the role of Hitler

Why did support for the Nazis increase in the late 1920s?

In 1928 the Nazis won support outside of Bavaria for virtually the first time. They began to win votes in farming areas of north Germany, as prices fell. But their big break came in 1929.

 On 3 October 1929 Gustav Stresemann died. He had been responsible, more than any other politician, for Germany’s recovery in the 1920s.

 On 24 October 1929 Wall Street, the American Stock Exchange crashed. US bankers called in their loans to Germany. German companies had to close down.

 This led to the Depression of the 1930s, which affected Germany more than any other country. By 1932 6,000,000 Germans (One in three of all workers) were out of work. Unemployment pay only lasted six months. After that came real poverty & homelessness. 2

 The Weimar government seemed unable to deal with the crisis (along with most governments in the world). The Social Democrats refused to cut unemployment pay and so went into opposition. As they were the largest single party this made it difficult to make coalitions. Governments came and went. Support for Weimar, never strong, declined and people began to look for other solutions to Germany’s problems.

 In this situation, President Hindenburg began to allow Chancellor Bruning to use his emergency powers on a regular basis to by-pass the Reichstag. Democracy in Germany had really ended by 1932.

 From 1929 support for the Nazis rose steadily.

1928 12 members of the Reichstag 1930 107 members 1932 July 230 members

Why did support for the Hitler and the Nazis go up so quickly?

 Hitler told the German people that the problems of the Depression were not their fault. He blamed the Jews and the Weimar democrats for Germany’s problems. He used them as a scapegoat.

 The Nazi Party propaganda chief, Goebbels, had Hugenberg’s money and newspapers to back them. Hitler hired a private plane to fly around Germany. He was the first politician to do this. Goebbels organised torchlight processions, rallies, radio broadcasts, films. Nazi propaganda was far ahead of any of their rivals.

 Hitler said that he would be able to solve the problems. He offered strong leadership and easy solutions.

 Hitler said that he would do away with the Treaty of Versailles, which had treated Germany so badly and make their country great again.

 He was always backed up by large numbers of disciplined and uniformed followers. The SA rose in numbers from 30,000 in 1929 to 440,000 in 1932. The discipline, the processions and the uniforms gave the impression of toughness and knowing what was needed. It reminded people of the old days under the Kaiser.

 The violence of the SA increased. This gave the impression of action and purpose. They particularly attacked Communists, which pleased middle class and business people. It also made the Weimar system look as though they couldn’t keep order.

 Hitler promised different things to different groups of people. To businessmen he promised that he would control the Trade Unions and deal with the Communists. To workers he promised that he would provide jobs. 3

Hitler becomes chancellor

As the situation in Germany became more and more desperate, people were more and more ready to listen to the ideas of Hitler.

 In 1932 Hitler stood in the presidential elections against Hindenburg. Hindenburg won 17 million votes, Hitler won 11 million.

 In the July 1932 general election the Nazis became the biggest party in Reichstag, but Hindenburg refused to appoint Hitler Chancellor. Franz von Papen became Chancellor.

 In the November 1932 the Nazis lost some support, but were still the biggest party in the Reichstag. Franz von Papen was replaced as chancellor by General Kurt von Schleicher.

 Von Papen was furious that von Schleicher had taken his place and was determined to get rid of him. In January 1933.he suggested that Hindenburg appoint Hitler as chancellor, with von Papen as Vice-Chancellor in a coalition government. Von Papen thought he could control Hitler.

 Hindenburg against his better judgement agreed. On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany.

Who supported Hitler?

During his campaigns Hitler had offered different things to different people.

 The middle classes supported him because he offered stability and protection from communism.

 At first many working men supported Hitler, because he offered work and security. He claimed that the real strength of Germany lay in its workers.

 Many women supported Hitler, because he seemed to offer a better family life.

 However his greatest support came from children, who seemed to have admired the order and discipline of the Nazi movement and to whom Hitler set out to make a special appeal.

 Opposed to Hitler were the communists and socialists, they saw that his ideas would take away basic freedoms.

 Members of some churches, especially the German Lutheran Church opposed him. However, Hitler claimed to be a Roman Catholic and this led some Catholics to back him at first. 4

Creation of the totalitarian state: the elimination of opposition

 Von Papen’s hopes of controlling Hitler were short-lived. Hitler immediately called for a general election on 5 March and was determined to gain the overall majority that he needed to make himself dictator legally.

 A week before the elections the Reichstag building was set on fire. The Nazis, (who have sometimes been accused of starting the fire themselves), blame the Communists. 4,000 Communists were arrested.

 In March 1933, before the election, Goering, the Minister for the Interior in Prussia, enrolled SA members as special constables. Other parties were attacked and arrested.

 In the election the Nazis win 17.3 million votes, 233 seats, the biggest party, but still not a majority in Reichstag. 22 million vote for other parties. But with the support of Hugenberg’s National Party the Nazis now controlled the Reichstag. When it met on 17 March, the Socialists and Communists stayed away. Hitler could now do as he liked.

The Enabling Act

 On 23 March the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, 1933. This gave Hitler the power to by- pass the Reichstag and make laws without its consent for four years. It was passed with the help of the Nationalists and with the Reichstag building surrounded by armed SA members.

 Local government was taken over by the Nazis; each of the 18 provinces was given a Nazi governor, April, 1933. Local parliaments were abolished.

 Only Nazis could become civil servants, judges.

 Trade unions were abolished in May 1933.

 All other parties were banned, July 1933. Their leaders were arrested, or fled abroad. The first concentration camp, at Dachau, was set up for political opponents in 1933.

 1934 Hindenburg died. Hitler becomes President and Chancellor combined, calling himself simply, The Leader – Der Fuhrer. The army swore its oath of loyalty to Hitler, personally.

The Night of the Long Knives

Once Hitler became Chancellor, he began to face opposition within the Nazi Party. Hitler’s only rival was Ernst Rohm, head of the SA, 3 million strong by 1934. They were more socialist than Hitler, more working class and eager for power. Roehm wanted a socialist revolution in Germany and also wanted the SA to become units in the German Army, with him at the head. This would make him more powerful than Hitler. 5

Why did Hitler order the Night of the Long Knives?

 Hitler did not want the socialists within the party to take control. He wanted a right wing dictatorship.

 He needed the support of the army for his plans for war and knew that the generals would not accept Roehm as their leader.

 Hitler had to act before President Hindenburg died. It would be very difficult to deny Roehm power when Hitler became Fuhrer.

 Roehm claimed that the SA was growing rapidly. He put the membership at 3,000,000, although it was probably nearer 500,000.

 Roehm ordered all members of the SA to go on holiday for the month of July 1934 and summoned the leaders to Munich for a conference.

 On the night of 30 June 1934, 400 SA leaders, including Rohm, were assassinated by the SS on Hitler’s orders. Also murdered was General Kurt von Schleicher and his wife.

The Nazi state: propaganda, education, youth movements, the arts, sport, entertainment and religion

 The Gestapo (Geheime Staats Polizei), or secret police, was set up and was run by Himmler after 1936. People were arrested and imprisoned without trial. Evidence from informers was used – people were encouraged to inform on neighbours, colleagues, even their own family.

 Every block or street had an informer who reported on any behaviour that might suggest non- Nazi views e.g. not giving the Hitler salute.

 Nazi “People’s Courts” tried people, often in secret.

 In 1934 the ‘Burning of the books’ took place. Nazi students took books by Jewish or anti- Nazi authors out of libraries and burnt them in huge bonfires.

 Goebbels controlled all forms of communication: books, newspapers, films, newsreels, radio as well as music and the arts. No non-Nazi views were ever heard. Only messages praising Hitler and the Nazis reached the public.

 Cheap radios were made. Hitler’s portrait was in every public place. People almost worshipped him; he was portrayed as Germany’s saviour from disaster.

This total control of every aspect of life and attempt to keep even people’s thoughts under control is called totalitarianism. 6

Education and propaganda

 All schools came under Nazi control. All school books were rewritten and included Nazi ideas about hatred of the Jews and war. Boys and girls went to separate schools.

 All teachers had to join the Nazi Teachers League

 The curriculum was changed. Subjects concentrated upon German history and nationalism. Girls were prevented from studying science and could only learn the mathematics necessary to be a housewife.

 In History pupils were taught about great events of German history, from a pro-German point of view. The Nazis view of the First World War, the ‘stab in the back’ was included as ‘the truth’.

 In Biology pupils were taught the phoney 'race science', which was designed to 'prove' the superiority of the German race.

 In PE: pupils got much more PE; boxing was compulsory for boys; girls were taught to cook and care for the home.

Propaganda

 Germans were continually reminded about the basic Nazi ideas. Men and women had separate and quite distinct roles in society. Women were mothers and housewives, men were soldiers and workers. These ideas were reinforced by posters, films and the radio.

What happened in the Nazi Youth Movements?

 Children joined at the age of five and stayed until eighteen. Membership was virtually compulsory. Boys joined the Pimpfen, then the German Youth and then the Hitler Youth. Girls joined the League of German Maidens.

 Children took part in ‘fun’ activities, camping, sports and outings. These helped make the Youth movements popular at first.

 They also had lectures about Nazi ideas, like racism. The girls were taught about child-rearing. The boys did activities which prepared them for the army: cleaning rifles, reading maps, throwing hand grenades, doing mock parachute jumps, going on long marches.

 The meetings were in the evenings and at weekends. Girls found that they had little time for homework. This was to prevent them having a career. Children were encouraged to spy on their parents and report what they did and said.

 In 1933 30% of young people in Germany were in the Nazi Youth movements; by 1938 it was 82%. In 1939 it became compulsory.

 By the later 1930s some young people were getting resentful of the time it took up, the boring lectures they had all heard before at school, the incomprehensible readings from Mein Kampf. 7

Religion in Nazi Germany

Hitler was hostile to Christianity, but many Germans were churchgoers and he did not attack the churches at once. He even claimed to be a Catholic to win support from the papacy.

 1933 Concordat with the Pope to protect the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. Nevertheless, Catholic groups were shut down and bishops imprisoned.

 Some Protestants formed a ‘Reich Church’, as part of the Nazi Party. Mein Kampf was placed next to the bible on the altar and the swastika was given equal prominence with the cross. Many Protestants refused to join and many were arrested.

 Many other religious groups persecuted.

Racism, citizenship and treatment of minorities, persecution of Jews: opposition to Nazi rule

Hitler blamed Jews for the defeat of Germany in the First World War. He wanted to purify German blood by eliminating all Jews and other minority groups.

In fact only about 1% of the population of Germany were Jewish. They were well-integrated, filling many positions in society, and contributing to it.

 From 1933 Jews were subjected to increasing persecution in Nazi Germany.

 At first they were banned from some professions, doctors, dentists, the civil service, for example.

 Nazis also called for Jewish shops to be boycotted.

 Then in 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were announced; these made Jews second class citizens and prevented them from marrying non-Jews.

 All kinds of civil rights were removed: voting, going to university, travelling, attending a theatre, cinema or sporting event.

 In 1938 a young Jew assassinated a German diplomat in France. This led to an organised attack on Jewish shops, houses and synagogues all over Germany. 91 Jews killed; 20,000 arrested. The Jewish community in Germany had to pay a “fine” of 1 billion marks. This was known as Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass).

 From early 1939 Jews were banned from owning businesses; all men to add the name “Israel” and all women the name “Sara” to their own.

The aim of the Nazis was to force Jews to leave Germany and many did, going to Britain, France and the USA in particular. But once war broke out this became more difficult, so Jews were forced into Concentration Camps. 8

Opposition to the Nazis within Germany

There were three main groups of people who tried to oppose the Nazis.

 Political parties like the Communists and the Socialists. They were banned from 1933, but worked underground in secret, keeping their organisation together and publishing newsletters. There was a big communist group called the Red Orchestra, which became very important during the Second World War.

 Young People. There were a number of student groups who distributed leaflets and organised meetings. One group, at Munich University, called the ‘White Rose’, centred around Hans and Sophie Kroll. They were arrested and executed in 1944.

 Some young people simply rejected the Nazis. ‘Swing’ groups listened to American jazz and openly admired American fashions.

 ‘Edelweiss Pirates’ were working class Groups who mocked the self-righteous Nazis and refused to join the Hitler Youth.

 Religious groups. These were the most difficult to deal with as many Germans would not have accepted attacks on the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

 Some Christians spoke out against the Nazis, like Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

 Later, in the war years, some people in the army became horrified by the Nazis’ brutality and worried that Hitler was leading Germany to certain defeat.

 In 1944 some officers planted a bomb in his war-room, but it failed to kill him. 5,000 people were executed in retaliation.

Why did opposition to the Nazis fail?

 Terror was a very important factor. Everybody knew that they were being watched. In every block of flats there was someone recording when people went in and out and who they met. People could be arrested at any moment and never be seen again.

 Children spied on their parents. Hitler tried to break down the family and make children loyal to him. He was described as their father in schoolbooks.

 Endless and powerful propaganda had its effect. It was impossible to get anti-Nazi views heard at all and the mass of people only heard good things.

 There was no mass feeling of resentment against Hitler, at least until the middle of the war. 9

The social impact of Nazism on social classes: the role and status of women: employment opportunities in the economy

The effects of Nazi rule on the lives of men and women

 The Nazi Party was a man’s party. There were no women in senior positions. Hitler and the Nazis did not believe in equality for the sexes. Women had to stay at home, produce more children and look after the family. This was for both racial reasons, to produce more racially- pure Germans, and economic reasons, to solve unemployment by removing women from the labour market.

 There was a lot of propaganda about the ideal German family. Photographs and posters showed the woman looking after the children and the man going out to work and protecting the wife.

 Women were forced to give up work when they got married. They could not be civil servants, lawyers, judges or doctors.

 Men were to be preferred to women in job applications.

 Couples received a loan of 1,000 marks on getting married. Less and less of this loan had to be paid back the more children you had.

 Women with hereditary diseases or metal illness were sterilised so as to keep the German race 'pure'. Unmarried women could volunteer to have a child by a 'pure Aryan' SS member.

 Nazi propaganda discouraged wearing make-up, high heels, perfume, smoking in public.

 Women’s roles can be summarised as three 'Ks' Kinder, Kirche, Kuche, children, church, cooking (or kitchen).

 But most people found themselves getting better off; transport improved, there was more security.

 Germany seemed to be recovering. In 1936 the Olympic Games were held in Berlin and the Rhineland was reoccupied. Both these events made Germans proud of their country.

 Workers had few rights. Trade unions were abolished and they had to join the Labour Front. Wages were low and rose much more slowly than business profits. Conditions of work in the Labour Front were tough, but it was at least a job.

 The ‘Strength Through Joy’ campaign gave workers cheap holidays, concerts, sport. The attempt to build a cheap car, the Volkswagen, failed until after the war.

 After what had happened to their country in the years after 1919 and during the Depression, many people were prepared to accept Nazism. They preferred to close their eyes to the arrests of opponents, the mistreatment of the Jews, the Nazi corruption. At least until the war started going badly, about 1942, most people were quite ready to go along with the Nazis. 10

Economic policies and rearmament

The Labour Service

 Before the Nazis came to power the National Labour Service had been started. This used government money to provide jobs for the unemployed, building bridges, roads and forests.

 The Nazis took up and expanded these schemes. Hitler was especially keen on the building of the first motorways, the Autobahns.

 All men had to spend six months in the Labour Service. They only earnt about 50p a week, wore uniforms and marched like soldiers. Much of the work was done by hand and not by machinery. This meant that there were more jobs.

Rearmament

 German re-armament gave a huge boost to industry, which soon had millions of new jobs. At first secretly, then quite openly, Hitler ordered the building of submarines, aircraft and tanks. This was quite contrary to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

 The army was increased from 100,000 to 1,400,000 by 1939.

Other methods

 Many people were removed from the list of unemployed, for example Jews, many women and the young men in the National Labour Front.

 By 1936 recorded unemployment was down from 6 million to 1 million; by 1938 industry was short of workers and during the Second World War workers were forced into German factories from all the countries the Nazis had overrun.

Self-sufficiency

 Hitler wanted the German economy to be self-sufficient so that it would be able to operate even in a war. Foreign imports were restricted and research put into finding substitutes for rubber, petrol, coffee and cotton. This policy was known as Autarky.

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